Former Cardinals Scouting Director Sentenced To 46 Months In Prison

Chris Correa, the Cardinals scouting director fired last year after just six months on the job for his involvement in a hacking scandal involving the Astros, was sentenced Monday to 46 months in a federal prison.

Correa admitted he trespassed on the Astros system based on suspicion that the Astros had acquired data from the Cardinals’ network.

According to the original indictment, Correa accessed the email account of one Astros employee, “Victim A,” and the accounts of that employee and another, “Victim B,” in the Astros’ proprietary database known as “Ground Control.”

Correa pleaded guilty in January to the charges. The maximum penalty he faced was five years in prison—instead he received a sentence two months shy of four years—a fine of up to $250,000 and restitution. Sentencing was originally set for April 11 but had been pushed back twice.

The next shoe to drop will be Major League Baseball’s expected punishment of the Cardinals. MLB earlier this month stripped the Red Sox of five international signings and banned them from the 2016-17 signing period for allegedly circumventing international bonus pools through package deals.

Commissioner Rob Manfred said the decision to pursue action against the Cardinals or penalize the organization would depend on what information MLB can obtain from the investigation.

“Now that the criminal process has been completed, Commissioner Manfred has asked the Department of Investigations to conduct a complete investigation of the facts in this matter, including requesting information from the appropriate law enforcement authorities,” the statement read. “The Commissioner hopes that the investigation can be completed promptly to put him in a position to take appropriate action.”

The Cardinals in a statement said they “intend to fully cooperate with the commissioner’s office in connection with its investigation so that this matter can finally be resolved.”

The Cardinals promoted Correa, 35, to scouting director in December 2014 after Dan Kantrovitz left to become assistant general manager of the Athletics.

But in June 2015, The New York Times reported that the Cardinals were being investigated by the FBI and the Justice Department for allegedly hacking a network of the Astros that housed proprietary databases. That probe stemmed from the leak of information about trade discussions and other personnel decisions involving the Astros that were published on Deadspin.com and other websites last summer.

Correa was alleged to have been involved and placed on an “imposed leave of absence,” before being fired in July.

Correa had worked for the Cardinals since 2009 in statistical analysis, first as a qualitative analyst, then as manager (and later director) of baseball operations. He had been involved with the Cardinals’ drafts from a statistical standpoint and has gained scouting experience in his role both at the major league and amateur levels. His background is similar to those of predecessors Kantrovitz and Astros GM Jeff Luhnow.

Correa earned an undergraduate degree from Hampshire College in Amherst, Mass., and earned his master’s degree in psychology from Illinois. He was working on his doctorate at Michigan prior to joining the Cardinals.

In 2009, Correa left a PhD program at Michigan to work on a contract basis with Luhnow, then the Cardinals’ scouting director and farm director. He later joined the front office full-time and was promoted to manager of baseball development in 2012.

Luhnow left the Cardinals to become GM of the Astros in 2011.